Nintendo has spent almost $1 billion on Switch 2 research & development this year

Nintendo Switch — The Switch 2 is proving expensive… for Nintendo (Nintendo)

Officially, Nintendo has said nothing abut their next console, nicknamed Switch 2 by fans, other than that they will ‘make an announcement about the successor to Nintendo Switch’ before the end of their current financial year, which means before April next year.

Beyond that, everything is speculation, including if and when they’ll announce it. Some recent rumours have suggested that there may be a reveal this month, but Nintendo leaks rarely prove to be accurate – so it’s nothing you can count on.

The only thing that matters is what Nintendo themselves says and while they haven’t made any public announcements a quick look at their recent financial results shows that they are spending an awful lot of money on research and development at the moment, even more than they did with the Switch.

According to their own records, Nintendo spent more on research and development during the last financial year than at any other time in the company’s 134 year history.

In total, they spent ¥138 billion last year, which works out at $910 million or £731 million.

In details, the first quarter of 2024 saw a jump to a record 45 billion yen ($300m) in spending.
A similar jump compared to the first quarter of 2016. pic.twitter.com/eYmFTA3LY8

— Pierre485 (@pierre485_) September 5, 2024

Nintendo’s research & development spending has increased every year for the last seven, but it started to rise more quickly in 2020 and made its biggest recent jump last year – which gives a very clear indication of when Switch 2 development began in earnest.

According to their forecasts, spending will increase again in the current financial year, with the first quarter of 2024 also being a record, with a jump to ¥45 billion yen – which is $300 million or £238 million.

That’s a major increase on previous quarters and, as pointed out by Pierre485 on Twitter, is very similar to the spike in the first quarter of 2016, before the launch of the Switch in March 2017.

There’s no question about what’s going on here and despite the lack of information from Nintendo it was already obvious that they’re well into the development process for the Switch 2, with recent rumours suggesting that full scale production is about to begin.

That’s certainly borne out by the data but it’s hard to know how much to read into the fact that it’s the most Nintendo has ever spent, since prices for everything have gone up for everyone in recent years.

What it does suggest is that Nintendo is not holding back from spending a lot of money, which was not necessarily a given, since they do have a reputation for miserliness. But not, apparently, when it comes to their new console…